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Editor's Letter
I
t's been an intense few weeks of
travel and thinking about the future.
I kicked off May in Las Vegas
at the HD Expo, scrambled back to
Chicago for the National Restaurant
Association (NRA) Show and then dug
in deep prepping for our third annual
Tour the Design Trends (page 42).
Some of you likely had similar
travels, probably even more. Like most
of you, I try to visit as many new res-
taurants as I can (which is not exactly a
terrible burden) and keep my eyes open
for the latest trends. These past few
weeks, I sampled veg-forward concepts,
themed restaurants, high-concept
designs, craft cocktails at thoughtfully
designed bars (page 72), restaurants
specializing in locally sourced ingredi-
ents and even a few dives. A delightful
side trip to the Neon Museum in Las
Vegas reminded me that creating an
experience has always been an impor-
tant driver in pulling in traffic, even
though everybody talks about it like it's
a revelation in design today.
Of course, upon spotting an
important concept in restaurant trends,
it soon becomes apparent I am already
a little behind. I walked away from the
NRA Show thinking kiosk manufactur-
ers seem well represented and possibly
on the rise. Slightly more than 40
percent of limited-service restaurants
offer touch-screen ordering, according
to the NRA's last tech survey in 2016.
But then I read Senior Contributing
Editor Dana Tanyeri's story on data-
driven design (page 50) and discovered
that at least one large chain is already
moving away from kiosks because app
ordering has quickly eclipsed it.
The NRA Show also featured a
keynote about the future of restaurants.
It was heavy. Attendees walked away
with their heads spinning with thoughts
of dining at a restaurant where custom-
ers order meals via kiosks with facial
recognition — or via apps that automat-
ically order your favorite meal as you
walk in — and deliver food to your table
as you sit down to enjoy a multiplayer
game before allowing you to pay for ev-
erything with the tap of a finger (or the
nod of your head). That is, if you decide
to leave your house.
Creating guest experiences also
means technology converging with con-
venience, and someday that might just
mean that you order via an app from a
shared "ghost" kitchen (meaning there
is no front of the house) where a lonely
human assists a burger-flipping robot by
packaging your order and placing it in
an autonomous vehicle that will bring
it directly to you (at home, at work,
at the ballpark). Sadly, you'll have to
step to the curb or the driveway to get
it — at least until houses are equipped
with drive-thru windows. And what will
that mean for drive-thru restaurants?
Who will want to bother getting in their
car and going to a restaurant when the
restaurant will come to you? I only hope
the restaurant in question brings me a
poke bowl in a DeLorean.
And I only hope you enjoy this
issue of rd+d.
Rebecca Kilbreath, Editor in Chief
rebecca@zoombagroup.com
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